I’ve have had a lot of success rooting softwood cuttings of plants that don’t produce much or any seed. This is my humble process.

I’ve tried this method on a number of different plant species including tropical houseplants. On some it works great and others not so good or not at all. The fun part is experimenting!

The basic idea is to keep the stem of the cutting alive until a callous and roots can form. This is called asexual propagation (‘a’ means without) or cloning, as apposed to sexual propagation which is by seed. And "softwood" means this year’s growth that hasn’t toughened to hard or semi-hardwood yet.

There are many methods and types of equipment you can use. However, this is the method I use and it’s currently working well for my plant needs.

Points to keep in mind before you start:

1) Use a sharp knife or pruning shears. Ones that won’t crush the end the roots will be generated from. A clean cut will preserve the cells close to the surface.

2) Clean your knife or shears with a cotton swab and rubbing alcohol or water and bleach (10:1), before you start to make cuttings. Fungus and bacteria can rot a cutting before it has a chance to form roots.

3) It’s best to take cuttings during a time of year when the plant is in full growth mode, usually early to mid-summer. Actually any time of year other than full dormancy is OK, but the more vigorous it’s growing at the time of cutting the higher percentage of success you’ll have. Again experiment, some plants will root fine from late September cuttings kept under grow lights.

4) Take healthy cuttings, strong, disease and insect damage free.

5) The leaf or leaves left on the cutting stem will continue to provide moisture and energy "juice" until roots have formed. So you have to cut off all the extra leaves and flower buds and only leave one or two leaves at the top. Some plants have large leaves compared to their stem diameter and you can cut them in half width wise.

6) Cutting length varies from plant to plant. Most will grow roots from 3 to 4 inch cuttings. Some need 6 inches and others are so hardy only an inch stem and one half of a mature leaf are required.

7) The bottom of the stems will rot if they are wet. So the idea is to lightly mist the leaves and keep the air in the seed tray and dome moist without getting the perlite mix and stems wet.

8) When taking cutting they should be taken quickly and not allowed to dry out, keep moist and out of the sun.

9) The cuttings need bright light but not direct sun

10) The rooting hormone has a shelf life and should not be contaminated, keep cool and dry and out of direct sun. Ideally, it will last a couple of years.

11) Go to the library. I’ve found most if not all of this information from library books and "Not the Internet". One of my favourite books is "Secrets of Plant Propagation" by Lewis Hill.

12) Lastly, Experiment. The best way to learn this is by trial and error. The best conditions for each species will become second nature after a while.

You’ll need:

- A bag of Perlite ("white popcorn", naturally occurring silicous volcanic rock), you can add vermiculite and a little soilless mix but remember we want it light and airy and not wet

- Plastic seed growing tray with a high 6" clear plastic dome top

- 1 to 8 - Plastic plant pots 3 or 4 inch with drain holes, cleaned with water and
bleach 100:1) I use clean cottage cheese containers

- Clean sharp shears

- Hand squeeze spray bottle with clean water

- Softwood cutting rooting hormone powder (Stim-Root No.1 0.1% Indole-3-butyric acid)

- Dibbler – a clean stick or pencil to make a hole in the perlite mix to put the cutting into

Method:

Clean your tools, pots and tray. Fill the pots with the perlite and put them into the seed tray. Harvest the cuttings from the plant taking longer cuttings then needed. At a worktable out of the hot sun, pour a little of the powder out on a napkin. Cut off the extra leaves on the stem of the cutting leaving one or two good leaves. Make a fresh cut on the stem touch it into the powder tap off the excess powder and with the dibbler make a hole in the perlite and push the stem in an inch or so. Each pot will hold 4 or 5 cuttings. When you’re finished preparing the cuttings mist the leaves and dome and cover the tray. Put the tray in an area that gets bright light but not direct sun light. Mist the cuttings daily or in very hot times of the year twice daily, morning and night. Roots will usually form in 3 to 6 weeks. Some annual vines like wave petunias and ivy root in as little as two weeks. To check for roots lightly tug on the cuttings if resistance, then you have roots. Let the root grow to a length and thickness that will sustain the size of the stem (experiment). Usually new leaf buds will start to grow at this time too. Then pot them up in clean pots and new potting soil and water with a mild transplant fertilizer. And slowly introduce them to the sun over a week or so.

Additionally, if you get a "jiffy" style seed heating pad (Wal-M in January) to provide bottom warmth you may get roots a little faster on some species.

Perlite, Clean sharp cutting knife or clippers, dibbler stick, rooting hormone, seedling tray and most importantly the 6" high dome cover to keep the leaves humid.







Hand mister, seed tray and dome, plant heating pad for winter and early spring rooting, and the cuttings. There are way too many cuttings in there but I can’t help myself.







Cuttings can vary in length. Some plants root from the leaf nodes others need a longer than this. But cut off the flower buds and small leaves to promote root growth. This is a Salvia elegans cutting.







Once the roots are an inch or two long pot it up. I use small 2 1/2" pots and a light potting mix and water with a weak transplant fertilizer. It may need to be kept in the dome for another week or so after that. Then introduce to the sun gradually.










And there you have it! Your results may vary :)

I like that you emphasized cleanliness to start out with. That's important. You could have mentioned that one of the reasons for a very coarse potting medium (with lots of perlite) is the avoidance of root rot and algae growth. Your mix looks perfect.

Have you ever found that you needed to increase air circulation? (I do not typically put a dome over my cuttings, so I wondered about that.)

I'd love to one day have a greenhouse with a proper missing system that has the correct air circulation too. But this is OK for now. I uncover it one or two times a day to hand mist and that brings in some fresh air. Actually the only downside at first, was the daily misting but now I love looking in on them :)

It's a real simple, quick method to grow cuttings that most anybody can do. Especailly if they don't have much room or bucks!

I often use a single edge razor to make cuttings. Very sharp and gives a nice clean cut.

Thanks for sharing.

Janie

mail (at) mikealrhughes (dot) com

I am so eager to learn new things about propagation. Today I finished planting the Emerald Blue creeping phlox that I dug up on Monday. Monday afternoon I got 3 "hunks" planted before the temps climbed to 90 and above; saving the rest of the creeping phlox until I could get back to planting it today. It was soaking in a small bucket of water since Monday afternoon to keep it from drying out. I planted the rest today and I read where you shear the creeping phlox after they are finished blooming so I sheared off about 3 in. after they were planted. The tips that I sheared off, I didn't want to throw away, and a light bulb went off in my head, why not try to root those tips? I stripped the leaves/foliage about an inch from the stem bottom and dipped it in Rootone and potted about 5 stems in a 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 in. nursery pot. Watered it well and we just had a good rain. I just went out and looked at the rain gauge and it shows 1 in. of rainfall. Yeh! It will cool it off and we needed that rain as everything is so dry here.

I know I have read that it is best to have a grow light and heat mat when starting seeds inside. I don't have room for a set up. I was wondering why I couldn't start the seeds indoors in something like that container tray or even ind.small pots and put them in window sill? Will they get too leggy without the gro light or shop light? I might could start them on a computer storage cabinet in the office and I could always buy a single shop light system and use that. As long as I put something on that furniture to protect it I won't have to deal with dear Hubby. I also have some wooden snack tables that I could set up by the window where there is natural light all day long.

Sorry this is so long. If you feel like you don't want to respond to all my questions here, feel free to email me direct.